A network of interlocking systems of racialized, classed, and gendered oppression contributes to the “feminization of homelessness.” Unequal and low pay, unpaid caregiving, lack of affordable housing, discrimination, a weak safety net, punitive welfare and public housing policies, and intimate partner violence (IPV) are among the many factors that contribute to women's homelessness. Despite their intersections, these factors are often considered in isolation. Arguing for movement away from single‐axis conceptualizations of women's homelessness, we offer an intersectional analysis of mothers’ pathways into homelessness that foregrounds structural inequalities, highlights relational power dynamics, and reveals multilevel intersections of identity and experience. Drawing on two complementary interview studies, we explore two interrelated pathways into homelessness: (1) IPV as a gendered, racialized, and classed experience that contributes to economic and housing precarity; and (2) intersections of weak and restrictive safety net programs with raced, classed, and gendered “discipline.” We trace how privilege and disadvantage cumulate across women's lives and how institutional and relational power intersect with common “shocks” (e.g., eviction, loss of employment). We attend closely to the racialized and gendered dynamics of economic abuse; how gender, race, class, and motherhood shape pathways into homelessness; and how these intersections inform institutional responses to economic and housing precarity.

Unhoused mothers not only contend with housing precarity and economic hardship but also intersecting classist, racist, and sexist stereotypes that position them as unfit mothers. Classed, raced, and gendered conceptualizations of “good” and “bad” motherhood are reified in US shelter regulations (e.g. strict rules governing parent and child behavior, curfews, mandatory participation in parenting classes) that seek to “reform” homeless mothers. To gain a better understanding of perceptions of and responses to shelter regulations, we interviewed 28 formerly unhoused US mothers about their experiences in family shelters. Participants overwhelmingly rejected “bad mother” stereotypes that equated lack of material resources with inadequate parenting and engaged in a range of overt (e.g. strategic recounting of life histories) and covert (e.g. subverting paternalistic rules) strategies to reclaim “good motherhood” and negotiate daily shelter life. Instrumental, discursive, covert, and overt critical resistance strategies were used to maintain parental authority, preserve one’s self-image as a “good” mother and obtain needed resources from shelter staff. Our findings highlight the complexity of critical resistance to class, race, and gender oppression and call for greater interrogation of how seemingly well-intentioned shelter rules and policies reinforce status hierarchies.

The first known university food pantry started at Michigan State University in 1993. Since then, campus food pantries are more widespread, although little is known about them. The current study examined how college pantries best serve students and foster their success. Twenty-eight food pantry directors and staff from across sixteen Michigan college campuses engaged in concept mapping, a technique used to examine the interrelationships among concepts understood by stakeholders. Analyses identified six concepts, examined importance of each concept as assigned by participants, and evaluated variation among institutions. Implications for findings and future research directions are discussed.

During the 2012 United States presidential campaign, the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates drew a stark line between “takers” and “makers,” claiming that too many Americans are “takers” because they receive more from the government and society than they contribute. In this chapter, we employ a critical social psychological framework to understand and deconstruct the political discourse surrounding “makers” versus “takers” and to illuminate the social psychology of social class and classism. This chapter focuses on attitudes and beliefs about social class that legitimize economic inequality and class disparities and the relationship of these beliefs to interclass relations and social and economic policy. In doing so, this chapter identifies the important role of social psychological research and justice-oriented frameworks in alleviating class-based disparities and classism.

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